“Emily Owens, M.D.” recap: “Chosen” (1.11)

All right, Emily Owens fans, don’t get too excited in your lesbian feels for this one: we do get some more Tyra and Hot Molly plot line in this episode, but warning: it is not good. However, do not despair, because there is SO much Bandari! And in the end everyone gets to wear sparkly dresses like it’s Hospital Prom! Also, there’s a gay patient who will squeeze on all of our gay hearts!

We begin with Tyra and Emily waiting in line outside for coffee, per usual in Denver I guess, and Emily starts going on about how about how Will is so totally in love with her right, using the metaphor of Magic Eye to explain her sudden glee. Yes, Magic Eye! The visual trickery of wavy colored lines and patterns on paper that wasted so many hours of all of our lives in the 90s! This is hands down the most geeky and amazing reference I have ever heard on a show ever! And Emily Owens delivers it without even a trace of embarrassment! A+, writers, for truly making her the biggest nerd!

Man, are you white. But I still love you.

We then meet our patients o’ the week: a dashing young fellow who lost his eye when he jumped off a cliff—like, on purpose—but was able to have it re-attached or something gross-but-remarkable. Adrenaline junkies are weird. You become much more attached to this adrenaline junkie, however, when Emily asks him some questions about his personal history from his chart, and he reveals that he hasn’t been in contact with his family since he came out. He says this casually, and Emily accepts it casually as well, and they’re all like, “Their loss,” but I just keep thinking, “You don’t even know your son jumped off a cliff on purpose and almost lost his eye, and don’t you want to know that, assholes?”

It’s cool. I mean, it’s not, but you know.

We also soon learn that the friend who has been by his side the entire time is not his partner, although he reeeeeally acts like he is, but is in fact straight, even though our almost-lost-his-eye guy is, duh, completely in love with him. All of our hearts breaketh for you, sweet almost-lost-an-eye guy. No, really.

The other patient is a charmingly well-mannered teenage boy, who’s having some chest pains, accompanied by his equally pleasant mother. They believe it’s just an effect of a hard blow in his soccer game, but after some x-rays, it’s revealed that he has a certified bullet stuck near his lung. Even though he has never been shot, confirmed by his absolute flawless lack-of-bullet-entrance scar anywhere on his torso. What is this sorcery?

The doctors try to come up with some cockamamie explanation—he inhaled it as a kid! (Huh?). But then as the mother reaches across the bed to stop him from updating his Facebook status about having a mysterious bullet lodged in his chest (a pretty badass Facebook status for a teen if there ever was one), Emily just happens to notice a bullet sized scar on the mother’s side. She pulls her into the hall and asks everyone’s favorite question, “Were you shot while you were pregnant?” Turns out Dad used to be in a gang; Mom thought everything was okay because her baby was still kicking in her stomach. But apparently, wombs and humans are amazing and were able to heal over the bullet in just the right way until the fated soccer ball dislodged it.

I have to say that while this kid and his mom were adorable, there was almost something a little too perfect about them. No teen is actually that pure, that Leave It To Beaver in the 21st Century with his mom. Even Rory and Lorelai were at least snarky with each other. And I also felt a little disappointed with the gang background. So the one black single-mom family in the episode, that appears so successful and happy, are only able to be that way because mom was able to escape from thug life? It can be a slippery slope, there.

In other hospital drama news, Bandari’s research project for some fancy valve thingamajig is off to a start, meaning that 1) she’s officially going to choose an assistant for it, which ends up being a race between Emily, Will, and Cassandra, of course, and 2) there’s going to be some big fundraiser for it, for which staff are recording a “What Bandari Means To Me” video. The interrogations that The Trio go through under Bandari’s critical eye for the assistantship are brutal, particularly when she asks them to describe why the others aren’t good for the position. But there are enough delicious “You stupid fools” looks from Bandari to make it all amusing.